binve (< 20)

What is money? Where does it come from?

20

This is a subject that I have written about many times. It is a critical topic becuase people really don't understand it.

Some of my writings include:--- The Gold Blog. Gold/Silver/GSMs (and a little Oil for good measure) - LINK--- Thoughts on the US Dollar, Analysis of the USDX Long Term, Follow up on the Gold Blog - LINK

Another excellent source is Chris Martenson. Watch his phenomenal presenation and educational set, The Crash Course. He discusses money early on in the presentation.

Well, here is another to add to the list. At the Swarm there is a really good one regarding Canada's financial system (which for all practical purposes is just like the US system. The Federal Reserve is a private bank).

What follows is a very entertaining, creative, and educational movie about the money system in Canada. Yes, it’s almost all applicable to the USA and to the entire debt-backed money world. There are some editorials you may not agree with, but I think it’s worth your time overall. This is a good one to share with those who may not be familiar with the way money works – in other words nearly everyone! (ht Damon - if these videos are too large for your screen, simply double click the video to view in Youtube)

Total running length is 1 hour and 36 minutes.

Here are the first two parts. Click on the link above or this link for the rest.

Oh, I almost forgot. Here are two other blog posts that talk about the real problem in our monetary system:

maturity transformation

What this means is to borrow short in order to lend long. It is the basis behind behind our entire financial system. And financial failures are not simply a random and rare by-product, but is actually a "feature" of this system.

I have linked to these two articles before, but I have never featured a post around them. But they are extremely relevant:

These post were written by Mencius Moldbug of http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com. His blog is extremely interesting (although it is a bit out there sometimes / fairly often). He is a Computer Scientist who likes to look at issues from an almost diagnostic point of view. I first started reading him in September 2008 (when he wrote these posts) with his discussion of Fractional Reserve Banking and Mises Banking.

Money is a medium of exchange which does not necessitate that medium have intrinsic value, in and of itself. In reality, gold is no better money than fiat currency, since looking back to the gold standard, it was rife with panics and high volatility. All it does it tie the government's hands financially.

I know you already are aware of this, but for other readers of your blog I thought it would be worth mentioning that a couple of Chris Martenson's crash course chapters also do an outstanding job explaining these issues.

PS - The action throughout the day seems to fit well within your current count - looking for your 950-1000 range as the end of this move down.